The flood situation in eastern Bangladesh has not been caused by the release of waters from an Indian dam on the Gumti river in Tripura, said India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

"We have seen concerns being expressed in Bangladesh that the current situation of flood in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by opening of the Dumbur dam upstream of the Gumti river in Tripura. This is factually not correct," it said in a statement today.

Vast tracts of land in Feni, Noakhali, Cumilla and Noakhali, Habiganj and Moulvibazar and parts of Brahmanbaria and Chattogram have gone under water.

The flooding in the eight districts has left over three million people stranded. Feni and Noakhali are the worst-affected districts.

The Indian MEA today said they would like to point out that the catchment areas of Gumti river that flows through India and Bangladesh have witnessed heaviest rains of this year over the last few days. The flood in Bangladesh is primarily due to waters from these large catchments downstream of the dam.

It said the Dumbur dam is located quite far from the border -- over 120 Km upstream of Bangladesh. It is a low height (about 30m) dam that generates power that feeds into a grid and from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW power.

It said heavy rainfall has been continuing since August 21 in the whole of Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh. In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed.

Along the about 120km river course, India has three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2. Amarpur station is in part of a bilateral protocol under which India is transmitting realtime flood data to Bangladesh.

"Data showing rising trend has been supplied to Bangladesh up to 1500 hrs on 21 August 2024. At 1800 hrs, due to flooding, there was power outage leading to problems of communication."

"Still, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for urgent transmission of data," the MEA said.

Floods on the common rivers between India and Bangladesh are a shared problem inflicting sufferings to people on both sides, and requires close mutual cooperation towards resolving them, the MEA said.

As the two countries share 54 cross-border rivers, river water cooperation is an important part of bilateral engagement.

"We remain committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions."